Is Instagram the social media platform you are looking for?

February 10, 2018

Social media is full but it is not overloaded and there is still room for other social media platforms out there. This is what Instagram developers thought of when creating it. The idea is to share and capture moments – ideally present moments. After being bought by Facebook it began its development even further and it as well began linking accounts to one another like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Ameba.

What can Instagram be used for?

It can be used to share post and videos with your followers; these can be brought to life with various tools and digital filters that Instagram offers. It offers the go live option to be able to share your important, funny or worth mentioning moments with your friends; these special moments of your life can be turned in real works of art with the help of the existing filters; it allows you to discover what other are posting and in many cases follow important designers, follow Hollywood personalities, and whoever may be of interest to you.

Where do you start from?

In order to create an Instagram account you firstly need to download the app to your mobile device and then choose a profile picture and a name. When uploading a profile picture, make sure you upload one that is 180 * 180 pixels. While on the mobile it will display as a 110 *110 pixels photo, it is necessary to have a good quality and size on the web view as well. As you go through the photos or through the others profiles, the dimension of your profile photo will go down to 40 * 40 pixels.

For a personal account a clear photo of your face is usually the best choice to make; while if you have a professional Instagram account it is important to use you logo or a product, so that people can recognize your brand. Set your profile to public in order to gain more popularity. You can change it back to private once you gain enough followers and do not need to market yourself so much.

These being said you have to choose your username for this social media network. You have two names to choose – the username (@UserName) and a changeable name that displays in searches. For your changeable name, try and stay as close to the truth as possible, without using weird characters. This way the followers can tag you easier and associate it to your name or brand.

How can you have the best Instagram profile picture?

First of all this can only be done from your mobile app. Then, make sure you use your face as a profile picture photo. Unless it is a business profile and you have a well-known logo to use, stick for your personal face. For both personal and business it is more personal to connect with a face rather than with a logo.

To look at your best, use a high quality camera and a professional like photo. Beware that you will be seen by people all over the world so it is important not to put a sloppy “selfie” just because you do not have another photo to choose from.

You have to look approachable and friendly, so a smile on your face would mean more than you can think of. While many of you think a full body photo is a good choice, this is not true. Try to show less of your body and more of your face. If your photo is a full body one, you can crop it to show just your head and a bit of your shoulders. Try to keep it as close as possible as your face is what it is all about.

Now all the above are about the profile photo to use. However, there is the bio below the photo that is important as well. For this, one has 150 characters available to use it right. Make sure you choose the right words to describe who you are and what your profile is all about. In this bio you can also add a hyperlink to your website or to your other social media account. Putting a personalized hashtag so that people will find you easier is also a great idea. See more about hashtags below.

How to get more user engagement on Instagram

It has been proved that photos of people faces receive more likes and comments than those with abstract design or with animals and people that use warm to increase their image tone receive more likes and engagements than those that use cool filters.

Another important thing to know is that Instagram users have developed what it is known as a “trend” – the hashtag. This helps you communicate with other users that share the same passions like you. Using the right and specific hashtags will help your photos not get lost in the many photos that are present online. You should opt for those that are in your specific niche; that are a part of some active communities. Each photo should have at most 20 hashtags, no more. They can either make or break your photo. This is why it is important to know how to use them.

Just how others find you through your hashtags, you can also find others through their hashtags. Make sure you react and comment to the hashtags you plan on using as well.

Another trick to make the most out of the Instagram account is to post photo that time of the day or those days that create the most views. To be organized in this sense you can add some reminders on your phone to remind you to post.

What can likes help you with?

Instagram is all about sharing, liking, engaging and creating bounds. While anyone can have an Instagram account and the vast majority is based on the social network one physically has, let’s focus on having more than this, more than just your friends liking you page and your posts.

Being engaged on Instagram can mean as little as 20 to 30 minutes per day. However, apart from being engaged you have to engage people to follow and like you. An optimized page can do just this. If you feel that more followers will do you good and make your profile stand out better, you can try the tips below and also the Instagram free trial to add likes and followers.

What is a like? A like is double tapping on the post or clicking on the icon under the content of the post. Is it so hard to achieve one? Doing the above will help you post cool things on your page and those should bring you the likes and followers you need. However, you can see below some tips to increase the number of likes for your posts.

The more likes you have the better social proof your page will have and people will get a better view of your Instagram page. They will bring you traffic, brand recognition and in the end, sales. This is what a real marketing campaign is all about and what your Instagram account should do for your brand.

Tips to increase the number of likes:

Tip no. 1

Make sure when posting you post good quality images or videos. You do not have to be a professional photographer, but paying attention to your focusing and lightening is not such a hard job.

Tell a story with your caption.

Stay consistent when using filters. This will help your profile and it will look just like having a themed profile. Choose one or two filters to sue and make sure to stick to them.

Tip no. 2

Be true to yourself. Recently this is what catches the eye, staying true to yourself and let the others see your reality. The online environment has a lot of fake or bought photos. Make a change in this regard.

Tip no. 3

Color your photo with blue. It has been proved that using blue as a filter color increases the likes by 24%. It may be because the blue is the color of trust, confidence and uniqueness.

Tip no. 4

Make your profile for more than just a certain audience. Try and enlarge your audience with posting about other topics as well, not just food or travel. Mix them up just a little bit or just show a bigger picture of what you want to say.

Tip no. 5

Using hashtags will help your content be seen by those that are not your followers. Stay on point when using them but make sure they exist in the comment section. Make sure what you post is trending those days, like winter during winter time, surfing during summer time etc.

Tip no. 6

Have your own brand? Create your own hashtag then. This will encourage the others to use it, as they constantly see it on your posts. In time you will get to have a community created.

Tip no. 7

Create engagements with your followers and not only. You can achieve engagements by contests, by polls, by hiding something in a photo and have a call to action for the others to find etc.

Tip no. 8

Use Boomerang to create your videos. This is a funny short video that is easy to digest and nice to be viewed. Now there is even the go live option, that makes it all more interesting. It is up to you how you use the video options on Instagram, but you should know that they create a lot of engagement.

Tip no. 9

Want engagement and likes? You should show some of this yourself. Follow back, engage back, like back, comment on the posts back. This will most probably bring back followers if you do it well targeted.

Tip no. 10

Over posting is never a good idea. While it is interesting to see what people think about, what they post and what they share, sometimes, what is too much is not good. Do not post more than 3 times a day. Once is more than enough to let others know that you are online and present.

Tip no. 11

An uncommon tip for getting more likes is to actually get the free ones that the various online services offer. Most of them make a one-time offer for a user offering a number of free followers likes and comments. This offers you the chance to see that they are true to what they say and afterwards you can upgrade to their paid plans if you think necessary. This is recommended only if you are serious about boosting your Instagram page.

The free trials usually promise to be risk free even before you decide on whether you really need it to buy or not. Before choosing one of this options make sure they comply with Instagram terms.

It is not the likes that are the most important in this equation. Make sure the engagement increases in the same time with the likes and you have more followers as well. Buying likes will not reach that marketing result you hope for on the long run.

Is there another app to choose from that has the same features like Instagram?

Do you think Instagram is overused and would like to try something else? There are various Instagram like apps out there that will allow you to do the exact same things like sharing photos and videos.

Flickr is a free download app and it can be used to share and store photos. While it is not as communicative as Instagram, it also allows you to interact with people that like your photos. It uses hashtags, but their use does not come with the same return as those on Instagram. However, a good thing about it is that it allows you to upload full resolution images. It is a very good app if what you are keen on is taking photos with your phone.

Imgur is an app that is more popular than Flickr. It is a free image hosting platform that allows you to upload and download photos at the same time. This allows one to upload an unlimited number of photos, which you can then share with your friends from this community or on other social media accounts. What is nice about it is that you can find a lot of stuff in just one place. The mobile version looks similar to Instagram.

Pinterest is the weaker option for Instagram replacement. While it is not a social media account as we are used to, it’s a good place to upload your pictures and create various boards to organize them. This is the place where the photo rules; you can still have followers and engage with them but not as easy as with those from the traditional social media accounts. A good thing about Pinterest is that the mobile app offers the same feel as the web one and this makes it easy to use wherever you are.

If you think there is no great competitor on Instagram take a look at the below one. The Snapchat app allows you to send photos, videos and message to people. However it is not like you can have something for a long period of time or permanently. A new and exciting thing it has is that it allows you to create your own emoji. This is more like a messenger app between people. However, one of the best app like Instagram.

Tumblr is a great choice that looks a lot alike Instagram. The MySpace is new and it allows you to make deeper customization to your profile page. It was believed to be a blogging platform but it is much more than this. It does not come with the Stories option but in the rest you can have everything exactly like on Instagram – photos, videos, text posts, hashtags.

There are various smaller apps such as Phhhoto, We Heart It, Musical.ly, Path and many more. But as far as comparison concerns, the above detailed ones are the best that can be compared to the Instagram app.

Conclusion

When it comes to social media it is important to be present; as online presence is what everyone is counting on these days. However, if you feel like an app does no good for you and you do not use it at its most; better not use it at all than have a low quality social media presence. Make the right social media choices for you and your brand.

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